Live Long and Prosper, the perfect Vulcan motto. I’m and old Trekkie so this is a sad moment.
http://m.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/live-long-and-prosper-leonard-nimoy-spock-stark-trek–dies-83/386423/
For those of you who don’t live here, enjoy this description of my town. From “Atlantic” magazine.
http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/#disqus_thread
The truth about Iraq’s WMDs is finally emerging. This is an important article.
Barack Obama appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday and his speech there, delivered in a somnolent, and desultory way, called out the horribly cruel burning of a Jordanian pilot and other barbaric Islamic acts. He then turned, and where he has been unable to mention that these barbaric acts were done in the name of Muhammed, he mentioned that horrible acts during the crusades, the inquisition, and then leaped forward to slavery and Jim Crow laws in the US were done in the name of Christ. So, according to Obama, who was raised in a Muslim country and attended an Islamic Madrassa (religious school) when young and impressionable, makes the case that Islamic barbarity is done by a fringe element and is not done in the name of Muhammed, but he claims the Crusades, Inquisition, slavery and Jim Crow were done in the name of Christ! There is a difference here and it is disturbing. Obama is giving us the Islamic version of history!!
Obama’s version of history is also wrong. The Crusades were a Christian response to the Ottoman conquest of the Holy Land. When one mentions Ottoman Conquest, Ottoman desecration is also included as Christians were slaughtered, churches were burned, artifacts destroyed, art defaced, literally. The Holy Land had been Christian since Roman times and were overrun by Muslims in the seventh century and the Crusades were several hundred years later, from 1095 to about 1350. They were undertaken in the name of Christ, obviously, to recover historically Christian lands. As we know all too well today, the Crusades failed.
The Inquisiton is an interesting subject for Obama to raise. This is as close to Muslim orthodoxy as Catholicism has ever been. The major crime in the Inquisition was apostasy, or leaving the religion, That is a capital offense under Islam and, at times, under the Inquisition. The deaths caused by the Inquisiton over hundreds of years would rise to a slow Tuesday for Boko Haram.
This leads to Obama’s most outrageous comment which was that Slavery and Jim Crow were undertaken in the name of Christ. Obama cites a vague reference in the Old Testament about “slaves obeying their masters.” for his claim, he forgets that was not Christ. He has shown that he has little knowledge of history, but this shows him to be ignorant of the anti-slavery and civil rights movement, as slavery was not undertaken in the name of Christ, it was ended in the name of Christ, as William WIlberforce in England and the Abolitionists in the US were deeply Christian in their fervent hatred of Slavery. John Brown carried Christ’s words in the bible as he attacked the slave establishment in Harper’s Ferry.
The most contemporary and egregious claim is that Jim Crow laws were instituted in the name of Christ. Even a person as unaware of History as Obama should recognize that it was Christ’s followers who lead the fight to eliminate Jim Crow laws. Reverends Ralph Abernathy, and Martin Luther King, Jr were men of the church, lead a religious movement to eliminate Jim Crow under the banner of the Southern Christian Leadership Council. How could Obama miss this fact?
Obama, as stated above, is poorly educated in history, but he is politically clever. By attempting to equate terror now with the Crusades and Inquisition and blaming Christ he is delving into the realm of the progressive movements belief in Moral Relativism, the idea that there is no universal truth, and, if you think Muslims are bad now, you should have seen the Crusaders in 1100. Yes, it is absurd, but remember what Professor Gruber said about Obama voters!.The politically adept Obama is speaking to his flock.
Sports is distinguished from theater or entertainment by the fact that the outcome is in doubt. I have taught this fact for years and the example I use is that if theater was sport, King Lear would, on occasion, rally to reclaim his throne. That would make a great show. This year’s SuperBowl shows that the outcome is in doubt until it’s over. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s not over until it’s over.” Even after Kearse’s miraculous catch brought the Sea Hawks to within a few yards of the victory and a run brought them to a yard of it, a equally miraculous interception did not end it. It took a misplay by Seattle to move the ball far enough from the goal line to allow Patriot’s quarterback Brady to take a knee safely to allow the last 18 seconds to run off the clock. Prior to that, he had the dilemma of not having enough room to take the knee behind the center as he actually would have had to attempt to advance the ball to near the line of scrimmage to allow that to happen. All of that with the risk of a fumble along the way.
The last play was set up by an interception at the goal line of a forward pass at a critical moment. The entire audience, including me, was wondering where the superb running back, Marshawn Lynch, who lead the league in running touchdowns this season, would carry the ball into the end zone. The pass was a surprise to me and hundreds of millions of viewers, but apparently not the Patriots who were expecting this sort of play. They had scouted the Sea Hawks and had seen them use this sort of play before. In practice, the play worked, but Coach Belichick told safety Malcolm Butler, “Now you know how to defend that play.” Indeed he did. But that did not end the game, it was still in doubt until a penalty allowed the Patriots the extra five yards and the ability to end the game on a knee.
This game illustrated the difference between theater and sport as well as any I’ve seen. No writer could get away by writing a script that allowed for the events of this game. The successful touchdown pass six seconds before the half, Brady’s 8 for 8 completions that put the Patriots ahead with 2:02 remaining, Kearse’s miraculous reception that seemingly set the stage for a Sea Hawks victory and then the interception. This game shows the superiority of sport over theater as popularity indicates. The outcome of a game is in doubt, obviously at the beginning, but sometimes at the end as well.
http://www.clarkgriffithblog.com 